Vicar of Dibley, Notting Hill star Emma Chambers dead at 53

Mr Grant described Chambers as "a hilarious and very warm person and of course a brilliant actress".

BBC1 will broadcast Vicar of Dibley this Monday in a late change to the schedules following the death of sitcom star Emma Chambers.

She wrote on Twitter: "I was regularly humped like this by the unique and lovely spark that was Emma Chambers".

Social media was awash with tributes from former colleagues and fans.

Born in Doncaster, Chambers trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in the 1980s, working in theatre for 10 years before her major TV break as Charity Pecksniff in a TV adaptation of Charles Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit.

Aside from being a staple character in The Vicar of Dibley for 13 years, Chambers appeared in shows Drop the Dead Donkey, Take a Girl Like You, and Little Robots, as well as movies Wind in the Willows, Notting Hill, and The Clandestine Marriage.

Grant called news of her death "very sad". "She will be missed and our deepest condolences go out to her family and friends".

She recalled an incident when performing in a London play, the production was halted because there was a cat backstage. Miss Chambers played the dimwitted but lovable Alice Tinker, who was an unlikely confidante of the Rev Geraldine Granger. "Very amusing, she made the daftness believable".

"Emma was a gifted comic actress who made any part she played ― no matter how ditzy or other worldly ― look easy", Plowman said.